Call the New Hampshire Law Library!
Recently we had a patron call about a discrepancy they’d found in NH RSA 561:1. Distribution Upon Intestacy. Their online subscription to Lexis includes the numerical fraction "½" in the text of subsection I (c). However, the patron’s print copy of the RSAs, published by Thomson Reuters, uses the fraction “¾”. Understandably, the patron wanted to know which fraction is correct?
The NH Law Library offers patron access to both Lexis and Westlaw on our public computer terminals, and we also have print sets of the RSAs published by Lexis and Thomson Reuters. The first thing we did was compare both print versions to their online counterparts. They each matched, with Lexis using “½” and Westlaw/TR using “¾”.
Next, we checked the statute’s source note. It told us that RSA 561:1 was amended in 1971, 1973, 1974, 1998, 2003, and 2021.
We then looked up 1974 version of RSA 561:1 in the library’s print collection of historical statutes. There we found the text reads “one-half”. This told us that if there was indeed an amendment that changed the fraction to “¾”, it would have been after 1974.
Finally, we checked the printed copies of New Hampshire’s Session Laws for 1998 and 2003. The session laws are the laws as actually passed by the legislature before they’re chopped up and inserted into the RSAs. We found that the “¾” amendment was made by Laws of 2003, ch. 47 and that there were no changes made to that section by the 2021 amendment. Now we knew that the statute is indeed supposed to read “¾” instead of “½”.
Interestingly, Lexis’s online copy of chapter 47 is correct. It just didn’t get updated in their text of the statute itself in print or online.
We told the patron of our findings and we’ve notified Lexis so they can make the necessary correction.
The Law Library’s collection includes all the old versions of the statutory codes in print as well as the session laws.
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